Make Your Own Doilies for Valentine's Day

Every other week, Anna Hezel talks about the innovations, decorations, and other quiet touches that make a party memorable.

Today: Not just for your grandmother's house anymore! Decorate for Valentine’s Day with doilies -- pretty, mod handmade paper doilies.

When else is it socially acceptable to wear pink, eat a lot of pork with your hands, and make everything heart-shaped? The answer is: never. Only Valentine's Day. So you have to make it count.

It always impresses me, at this time of the year, to see how many ingenious food bloggers around the internet find ways to turn their foods into heart shapes. Everything from carrot slices to hard-boiled eggs to beets are going heart-shaped, not to mention the standard bevy of cookies and candies. If you were determined enough, you could really create a whole day full of meals entirely shaped like hearts.

Ambitious as I may be about all things decorative, I usually settle on baking a few festive cookies and capitalizing upon the novel availability of Reese’s Peanut Butter Hearts in stores everywhere. This year, I became enamored with a new Valentine’s Day decoration.

These heart cutout doilies take about two minutes to make, and you can use them to decorate a table for a party or gift plates of homemade Valentine’s Day treats.

More: 10 fancy schmancy Valentine's desserts worthy of a good doily.

Supplies:
- a few square sheets of paper, in varying sizes
- scissors

Instructions:
Fold your square of paper in half, creating a rectangle, and then food the rectangle in half, creating a smaller square. Fold this square in half diagonally to create a triangle.

Fold this triangle in half to create a narrower triangle.

Cut a semicircle from the wide end of the triangle. Now cut the pointy end of the triangle off with a diagonal line. You should have what will look like half of a heart. 

Unfold, and trim as needed. To smooth out creases before using, set your doily between two sheets of parchment paper, and iron gently on a low heat.

Photos by Anna Hezel